Coronation Street star Sally Ann Matthews is one of the soap's best-known faces.
The Jenny actress first appeared on the cobbles way back in 1986 as Rita's wayward foster daughter until she left in 1991. After a brief return in 1993, Sally Ann then didn't step foot in Weatherfield again until 2015.
Since then, Jenny has been at the centre of some of the soap's most dramatic storylines including her mental breakdown and kidnapping of Jack Webster, and her fiancé Leo Thompkins being brutally murdered by Street serial killer Stephen Reid.
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When she first appeared on the ITV soap, Sally Ann was just 16, and had to balance the normal traumas and insecurities that come with being a teenage girl with the pressure of being a household name.
She previously told the Mirror a damaging comment from a TV critic left her severely unwell in an eight-month ordeal that Sally Ann kept secret for more than two decades.
She said: “When I was in Corrie first time around there was no real celebrity culture. No Twitter, Facebook. In those days, before social media, people were much more focused on the TV critics – who were sort of celebrities themselves.”
As well as praise for her portrayal of Jenny, there were some cutting remarks, too. She vividly remembers one critic's comment after Jenny got engaged to French law student Patric Podevin.
Sally Ann recalled it said: "What would a handsome Frenchman boy like Patric see in a little pudding like Jenny Bradley?", before adding: "For me that was then eight months of active bulimia and then recovery.”
Thankfully she is doing much better now and is able to talk about the incident almost matter-of-factly.
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